Years ago I passed up two opportunities to accept tenure-track professor positions in English/Creative Writing at two universities, in part because I thought I could have an equally positive impact at the community college level (and especially in Tulare County, for the most recent census has noted that nearly 60% of the county's population is "Hispanic"--I much prefer the term Latino); after all, unlike many four-year institutions, two-year colleges literally accept any adult, and that all-inclusive atmosphere has certainly made my classrooms both lively and memorable. Still, both university job offers came partly because I had at least satisfied one common requirement for tenure-track positions at most publicly funded universities: I had earned the appropriate terminal degree, an MFA, in my area of specialization.
But, when I accepted my current position in 1991 (I had never taught at a community college before 1991: my previous teaching posts were at two University of California campuses--and, yes, I did have to "adjust" my expectations and standards), I was the only MFA degree holder regardless of discipline (i.e., creative writing, 2-D or 3-D art, drama/theater arts, etc.) at College of the Sequoias (COS). In contrast, the majority of faculty who teach at two-year colleges have either an MA or an MS degree. In 1991, I was the lone MFA fish in my pond, so to speak, but graduate programs that confer MFAs have since increased dramatically in number; hence, I'm no longer in that position at COS.
However, the same lack of knowledge I first encountered in 1991 about MFA degrees still seems to be the norm at most community colleges--and that sad fact can have serious implications (that involve life-long earnings and even retirement annuities) for those who've earned these terminal degrees that are the equivalent of PhD degrees.
I first became acquainted with the MFA degree when I took my first creative writing workshop at a community college back in the mid 1970s: My creative writing professor had an MFA from the University of California at Irvine. And he made it a point to explain to us why his degree was quite different than those held by the majority of his colleagues: A PhD holder in English literature or composition is primarily a historian or critic or student of a body of work or an area of study, whereas an MFA holder in English is primarily a creator of literature (often poetry or fiction, though drama and creative non-fiction are also gaining currency in graduate writing programs): the PhD recipient explains works of literature or literary theories by others, but the MFA recipient creates works of literature. Essentially, if one takes literature or theory courses, one examines literature by well-known authors; if one takes creative writing workshops, one produces literature that's critiqued by workshop participants and professors.
Consequently, the goals of those earning such terminal degrees are totally different: a PhD candidate studies literature, an MFA candidate produces literature. And every literature course uniformly adheres to one vital aspect: the students' writings never take center stage in their seminars. In contrast, every creative writing workshop emphasizes the students' writings.
The formal coursework for either an MFA or a PhD candidate usually comprises two years of full-time study (most MFA/PhD degree programs require approximately 54-60 semester units beyond the BA level; in contrast, most MA/MS degree programs require approximately 24-30 semester units beyond the BA level); however, some MFA/PhD candidates may opt to lessen their coursework loads in the face of required teaching duties and writing schedules and, thus, take three or even four years to complete their coursework--this depends on a program's protocols and residency requirements. Still, someone who's quite gifted as a student and as a writer could complete an MFA or PhD in as little as two years (but three to five years is a more commonplace time period for some to earn either an MFA or a PhD).
The dissertations/theses for PhD and MFA candidates have one important commonality: they must be book-length works of publishable quality. As for MA/MS theses, they're often 25-40 page articles--and articles are not book-length works. No wonder many MFA and PhD programs give candidates from five to seven years to complete their degrees. In fact, if one examines the unit requirements for many MFA/PhD programs, one will realize that the majority of PhDs take more than three years to complete their degrees because of the time needed to complete their dissertations: again, formal coursework can usually be completed in two years. Given the fact that PhD candidates rarely take courses that focus on evaluating and improving their writing skills, the plethora of ABDs (all but dissertations) should not be surprising: Most PhD candidates are not formally trained as writers of academic non-fiction prose.
And therein lies the advantage of the MFA candidates: Since most completed multiple semesters of creative writing workshop attendance during their undergraduate years, they can easily transition to and indeed flourish under the writing demands placed upon them at the graduate level. As a result, most MFA candidates have no problem completing their book-length works within two to three years. Rare are the MFA candidates who must take five to seven years--unlike some PhD candidates--to complete their books.
The Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) has long promoted the MFA as the appropriate terminal degree to teach creative writing at the college and university level; more importantly, the AWP has steadfastly supported the position that the MFA is the equivalent of the PhD in literature or composition. Not surprisingly, many of us have benefited from studying with tenured professors who earned MFAs; additionally, many MFA holders currently direct or have directed graduate creative writing programs, including Christopher Buckley, Garrett Hongo, Alberto Rios, David St. John, the late Herb Scott--the list of notable poets and writers goes on and on--and a number of MFA recipients have won a myriad of prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize: Rita Dove, Richard Ford, Yusef Komunyakaa, Philip Levine, and Charles Wright are among such recipients. In short, the overwhelming majority of four-year colleges and universities have long accepted the MFA as the appropriate terminal degree that's equivalent to a PhD for tenure-track positions within the fine arts disciplines, but community colleges for whatever reason have been slow to accept or even understand this over half century-long academic standard (the MFA degree in English has existed since the 1940s)--and that lack of knowledge causes some to rhetorically say, "Well, what do you expect at the junior college level?"
That term, junior, carries pejorative connotations, and when I joined the community college arena, I already knew that many who teach at four-year institutions viewed "juco" schools through rather unflattering lenses. I remember one professor in graduate school who was adamant that I should never teach, even part-time, at a community college: "I guarantee you, you'll regret it," he said, his head angled downward as if he were contemplating one of the circles of hell reserved just for those who teach at community colleges. His main concern--for me and others with MFAs--was the complete lack of institutional reward for faculty at the two-year college level when it comes to publishing; moreover, he made what has come to be a somewhat prophetic comment about terminal degrees at community colleges: "At junior colleges, they don't understand that MFAs are similar to PhDs," and that alone should "scare you away from them." He noted that most who teach at "junior" colleges have MA or MS degrees, and he posited that they're "not eager to admit that MFAs are terminal degrees. You'll only threaten them with your MFA, and that won't be good for you or for the students, especially the students." He later explained that students at "junior" colleges aren't assured of having qualified faculty in their creative writing classes since seniority alone oftentimes determines teaching assignments at the two-year college level, not area of specialization which is the academic norm at the four-year college/university level.
He was certainly right about the lack of knowledge about MFA degrees (I recently asked someone who has an MFA if he had heard that MFAs were the equivalent of PhDs, and he answered emphatically, "No!" Ironically, he earned his MFA at a college that notes in their MFA handbook that the MFA is "the equivalent of a PhD"--and the notation is in bold letters. I don't blame this person or anyone else who thinks that MFAs are not equal to PhDs; rather, this just illustrates that even some with MFAs aren't necessarily aware of the terminal degrees they possess).
However, hope bounds eternal, for a nearby community college district, the State Center Community College District (SCCCD), which comprises Fresno City College and Reedley College as well as other centers, has for years recognized the fact that the MFA is the equivalent of a PhD: the SCCCD gives both MFA and PhD holders the same yearly stipend.
If we can figure out that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa, we can surely figure out why some degrees are considered "terminal degrees" and accepted as equivalents to PhD degrees at the vast majority of publicly funded universities; once enlightened, we can use that knowledge accordingly at the community college level and equally recognize and reward those who've earned terminal degrees.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Satan's Billboards
Along a stretch of Highway 198 just west of Hanford, CA, a billboard proclaims a message supposedly from Satan (he asks people to avoid a certain religious group). Obviously, Lucifer didn't pay for the outdoor space, but the idea of the most famous of all fallen angels utilizing advertising to sway the populace seems appropriate when one considers the angry, blame-oriented tenor of the times.
Lucifer would certainly like a billboard that says, "Don't worry about your neighbor's welfare: Worry about yourself." Preoccupation with one's situation is something every human who once breathed on the planet could understand; even primordial man, hunkered down next to his weakening fire as the rain soaked the world outside his cave, would have been acutely aware of his plight: "Where will I find dry stuff to burn to keep away the cold and the beasts?"
Many in this country have no such immediate concerns, but the homeless can empathize with such vulnerability; not far from the neighborhood of my childhood in Fresno, dozens of ramshackle tents and cardboard and wood scrap constructions line the asphalt of what was once a bridge from California Street to Van Ness Avenue. The kids called that area "The Hill" and we would ride our bikes down those bridges that rose over the railroad tracks and the nearby Fresno Rescue Mission where "the men of the road" could find a meal and a bed if there was room. Now entire families inhabit that area and must fight poverty, drug addiction, violence--and our nation's collective apathy for their lives.
One of Satan's billboards would surely pronounce, "Apathy is good: To hell with the other guy. If you give him some money, he'll waste it on drink or drugs." Rationalization has a way of dulling the soul to the point of maladjusted pride: "Whenever one of those people asks me for money, I say, 'Get a job!' Jesus!" The irony of such an exclamation is profound, for Jesus would have never rationalized turning away from even the least of his fellow man or woman or child. Yet, millions daily turn away and think they're championing some kind of moral ethic, though if one logically analyzes such a response (to deny someone aid), one would ultimately have to admit that Satan would embrace such an ethos.
Satan's billboards could be direct:
"Don't extend tax cuts unless the wealthy are included too."
"Overturn legislation that gives the poor and the working classes health care."
"Don't spend your taxes on the general masses: That's socialism and communism."
"Privatize all social services: Don't waste money on others."
Now don't get yourself riled up if you agree with the previous statements; however, seriously ask yourself one question: "Would Satan or Jesus support such positions?" If you think Jesus' teachings support such anti-human thinking, please let me know the title, chapter, and verse of the text you've been reading if you consider yourself a Christian.
But Satan's billboards could also be subtle:
"All white or mostly all white juries and hiring committees and neighborhoods don't harm anyone."
"Support the police: They know who to stop."
"Let's take back America!"
Implicit in those statements are those who will be considered guilty until proven innocent, those people of color who won't secure employment even though they're highly qualified, those who will grow up in segregated areas--and even cultivate segregated adult lives--and be conditioned to fear diversity or be intolerant to difference, those who will be wrongfully stopped, and those who will be scapegoated for most of the ills in America.
And in a country where few are trained in or possess critical thinking skills, Satan would appreciate the ultimate effect of such billboards: They work.
Lucifer would certainly like a billboard that says, "Don't worry about your neighbor's welfare: Worry about yourself." Preoccupation with one's situation is something every human who once breathed on the planet could understand; even primordial man, hunkered down next to his weakening fire as the rain soaked the world outside his cave, would have been acutely aware of his plight: "Where will I find dry stuff to burn to keep away the cold and the beasts?"
Many in this country have no such immediate concerns, but the homeless can empathize with such vulnerability; not far from the neighborhood of my childhood in Fresno, dozens of ramshackle tents and cardboard and wood scrap constructions line the asphalt of what was once a bridge from California Street to Van Ness Avenue. The kids called that area "The Hill" and we would ride our bikes down those bridges that rose over the railroad tracks and the nearby Fresno Rescue Mission where "the men of the road" could find a meal and a bed if there was room. Now entire families inhabit that area and must fight poverty, drug addiction, violence--and our nation's collective apathy for their lives.
One of Satan's billboards would surely pronounce, "Apathy is good: To hell with the other guy. If you give him some money, he'll waste it on drink or drugs." Rationalization has a way of dulling the soul to the point of maladjusted pride: "Whenever one of those people asks me for money, I say, 'Get a job!' Jesus!" The irony of such an exclamation is profound, for Jesus would have never rationalized turning away from even the least of his fellow man or woman or child. Yet, millions daily turn away and think they're championing some kind of moral ethic, though if one logically analyzes such a response (to deny someone aid), one would ultimately have to admit that Satan would embrace such an ethos.
Satan's billboards could be direct:
"Don't extend tax cuts unless the wealthy are included too."
"Overturn legislation that gives the poor and the working classes health care."
"Don't spend your taxes on the general masses: That's socialism and communism."
"Privatize all social services: Don't waste money on others."
Now don't get yourself riled up if you agree with the previous statements; however, seriously ask yourself one question: "Would Satan or Jesus support such positions?" If you think Jesus' teachings support such anti-human thinking, please let me know the title, chapter, and verse of the text you've been reading if you consider yourself a Christian.
But Satan's billboards could also be subtle:
"All white or mostly all white juries and hiring committees and neighborhoods don't harm anyone."
"Support the police: They know who to stop."
"Let's take back America!"
Implicit in those statements are those who will be considered guilty until proven innocent, those people of color who won't secure employment even though they're highly qualified, those who will grow up in segregated areas--and even cultivate segregated adult lives--and be conditioned to fear diversity or be intolerant to difference, those who will be wrongfully stopped, and those who will be scapegoated for most of the ills in America.
And in a country where few are trained in or possess critical thinking skills, Satan would appreciate the ultimate effect of such billboards: They work.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
America's Dysfunctional Soul
With each election cycle, the American populace is literally pummeled by political advertisements that often promote greed, hatred, selfishness, and xenophobia--and done so with ever-increasing degrees of mean spiritedness. We've strayed so far from John Kennedy's inaugural plea for altruism ("Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country") that many people don't even know what the term altruism means.
When I consider another term that is bandied about by political candidates and pundits like a beach ball, Christianity, I fear for America's soul, for our public policies at times are antithetical to any of Christ's teachings. Of course, the founders of this country wanted a separation between church and state, but that doesn't prevent politicians from espousing so-called "Christian values" even though one would be hard-pressed to find any reference in Christ's teachings that greed is good, that one should promote hatred for those who don't share your opinions or who are different or "illegal," that selfishness is better than selflessness--I'm puzzled as to which New Testament some politicians supposedly adhere to when they claim to be Christians. I do know that the Bible has over 3,000 references directing us to help the poor, but I can't find any stipulation that corporations and the wealthy should receive corporate welfare or "subsidies."
If the poet John Keats correctly noted that the world is a "vale of soul making," America is in a vale of soul destroying.
For example, some want to overturn what they call "Obama Care" as if Congress' constitutional duty to care for "the general welfare" of the populace doesn't include health care. Most industrialized nations of the world provide public health care just as they provide for police and fire services: They are public goods that benefit all and aren't driven by a for profit ethos. In contrast, wealthy people throughout the world can always afford quality health care regardless of the countries in which they live; they can always fly to the best clinics with no concern for costs. Imagine, for a moment, if health care was paid for by our taxes in the same way we collectively pay for police and fire services. Imagine how much less our health care costs would be since the profit motive to provide such services would no longer exist. Let me use an analogy: Which are more expensive, public schools or private schools? Most private K-12 schools require at least $500 a month in tuition ($5,000 a year in tuition--some charge far more) per pupil, yet no one pays $5,000 a year in federal and state taxes just to send one child to a public K-12 school.
When costs for public services--with no for profit emphasis--are widely distributed and shouldered by everyone, costs go down, not up. For example, the city of Los Angeles has a city-owned utility, The Department of Water and Power (DWP); municipal bonds are the primary resource to pay for its operation. Los Angeles residents uniformly pay less in water and power costs when compared to those who pay Southern California Edison (SCE) or Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) companies, which are for profit entities, for their water, natural gas, and electricity needs. If Los Angeles' DWP raises its rates, it does so because of rising costs necessary to provide services; as for SCE and PG&E, they must raise rates in part because their stockholders want to make more profits.
Even if we eventually have publicly funded health care, insurance companies will never go away, so one need not worry about them; they'll always do business insuring lives, homes, automobiles, and personal property. And what about medical professionals who want to earn as much money as possible to provide for their families? Hopefully, those who become medical care-givers do so because they have a personal desire to care for others, just as many police officers, firefighters, and educators look to their professions as a means of aiding others. If one is truly motivated by greed, Wall Street brokerage firms and banking institutions are notorious magnets for those so inclined. (Imagine if the recent bailouts went to pay off late mortgage payments and high interest credit card balances instead of providing financial conglomerates the ability to hand out huge bonuses that are often larger than the incomes many people earn in a lifetime: That kind of individual citizen-centered bailout would have truly stimulated our economy by reducing individual debt while still helping financial institutions that issued those mortgages and credit cards.)
Many spiritual texts emphasize love and compassion for fellow human beings, and one way societies have implemented such a directive is via communal programs paid for by taxes. Taxes pay for a myriad of things we take for granted: roads and highways, public schools, college and vocational student grants, housing loan programs, traffic control and street lights, flood control systems and sewage treatment facilities--even the electricity we get from private companies could not have become a commonplace phenomenon had it not been for electrification projects paid for by tax dollars (any good American history text will make clear how various government-initiated, tax-payer funded programs have resulted in the nationwide infrastructure we use on a daily basis).
Nevertheless, politicians have promoted the notion that taxes are evil and hinder your ability to live a fruitful life. Consequently, the common mantras are "no new taxes" and "tax breaks for all." But what if you had to build or repave the roads you personally use because substantial tax reductions wipe out funds for such improvements? What if you had to pay for every time you needed police service or fire department help? What if you had to pay 50% down to buy a home and had only 5-10 years to pay off the remaining mortgage? (Historian and author Stephanie Coontz notes in her essay "A Nation of Welfare Families" that this was the standard home purchasing protocol prior to the creation of the Federal Housing Authority, Fannie Mae, and Ginnie Mae when the federal government went into the business of insuring and backing housing loans.) What if you had to pay for tuition to send your child to a private K-12 school because public schools could no longer accommodate all school-age children due to reduced tax revenues?
Taxes might make us wince when we see the net results of our take-home earnings, but taxes also insure that we can expect certain public services that we wouldn't want to be denied. More importantly, those who make millions each year should pay a minimum amount of taxes every year despite all of the loopholes they currently utilize: Who would feel sorry for someone who makes millions of dollars a year--or even one million dollars a year--and would have to pay at least half of his or her earnings in taxes? I wouldn't feel sorry for someone who would have to live on $500,000 a year--who would? If I were in a position to make millions each year, I wouldn't feel somehow less of a human being if half of my income went to help the general populace; if anything, I would feel good that I'm helping to reduce the taxes of those whose incomes are far less than mine (remember "Ask not what your country can do for you..."?) while improving and sustaining the country's infrastructure.
Keats was right: The world is a "vale of soul making." Instead of scapegoating the poor, the undocumented, and the unionized workers in this country (unions came about largely because of greedy business owners who didn't care about the working conditions, health, and welfare of their poorly paid employees), we need to realize that our country's soul depends upon our collective ability to integrate our spiritual awareness into our public policy awareness. If we're truly committed to "acknowledge Him in all thy ways" (and I'm fairly sure all means all), we must incorporate altruism in every aspect of our lives, including our political lives and our public policies.
When I consider another term that is bandied about by political candidates and pundits like a beach ball, Christianity, I fear for America's soul, for our public policies at times are antithetical to any of Christ's teachings. Of course, the founders of this country wanted a separation between church and state, but that doesn't prevent politicians from espousing so-called "Christian values" even though one would be hard-pressed to find any reference in Christ's teachings that greed is good, that one should promote hatred for those who don't share your opinions or who are different or "illegal," that selfishness is better than selflessness--I'm puzzled as to which New Testament some politicians supposedly adhere to when they claim to be Christians. I do know that the Bible has over 3,000 references directing us to help the poor, but I can't find any stipulation that corporations and the wealthy should receive corporate welfare or "subsidies."
If the poet John Keats correctly noted that the world is a "vale of soul making," America is in a vale of soul destroying.
For example, some want to overturn what they call "Obama Care" as if Congress' constitutional duty to care for "the general welfare" of the populace doesn't include health care. Most industrialized nations of the world provide public health care just as they provide for police and fire services: They are public goods that benefit all and aren't driven by a for profit ethos. In contrast, wealthy people throughout the world can always afford quality health care regardless of the countries in which they live; they can always fly to the best clinics with no concern for costs. Imagine, for a moment, if health care was paid for by our taxes in the same way we collectively pay for police and fire services. Imagine how much less our health care costs would be since the profit motive to provide such services would no longer exist. Let me use an analogy: Which are more expensive, public schools or private schools? Most private K-12 schools require at least $500 a month in tuition ($5,000 a year in tuition--some charge far more) per pupil, yet no one pays $5,000 a year in federal and state taxes just to send one child to a public K-12 school.
When costs for public services--with no for profit emphasis--are widely distributed and shouldered by everyone, costs go down, not up. For example, the city of Los Angeles has a city-owned utility, The Department of Water and Power (DWP); municipal bonds are the primary resource to pay for its operation. Los Angeles residents uniformly pay less in water and power costs when compared to those who pay Southern California Edison (SCE) or Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) companies, which are for profit entities, for their water, natural gas, and electricity needs. If Los Angeles' DWP raises its rates, it does so because of rising costs necessary to provide services; as for SCE and PG&E, they must raise rates in part because their stockholders want to make more profits.
Even if we eventually have publicly funded health care, insurance companies will never go away, so one need not worry about them; they'll always do business insuring lives, homes, automobiles, and personal property. And what about medical professionals who want to earn as much money as possible to provide for their families? Hopefully, those who become medical care-givers do so because they have a personal desire to care for others, just as many police officers, firefighters, and educators look to their professions as a means of aiding others. If one is truly motivated by greed, Wall Street brokerage firms and banking institutions are notorious magnets for those so inclined. (Imagine if the recent bailouts went to pay off late mortgage payments and high interest credit card balances instead of providing financial conglomerates the ability to hand out huge bonuses that are often larger than the incomes many people earn in a lifetime: That kind of individual citizen-centered bailout would have truly stimulated our economy by reducing individual debt while still helping financial institutions that issued those mortgages and credit cards.)
Many spiritual texts emphasize love and compassion for fellow human beings, and one way societies have implemented such a directive is via communal programs paid for by taxes. Taxes pay for a myriad of things we take for granted: roads and highways, public schools, college and vocational student grants, housing loan programs, traffic control and street lights, flood control systems and sewage treatment facilities--even the electricity we get from private companies could not have become a commonplace phenomenon had it not been for electrification projects paid for by tax dollars (any good American history text will make clear how various government-initiated, tax-payer funded programs have resulted in the nationwide infrastructure we use on a daily basis).
Nevertheless, politicians have promoted the notion that taxes are evil and hinder your ability to live a fruitful life. Consequently, the common mantras are "no new taxes" and "tax breaks for all." But what if you had to build or repave the roads you personally use because substantial tax reductions wipe out funds for such improvements? What if you had to pay for every time you needed police service or fire department help? What if you had to pay 50% down to buy a home and had only 5-10 years to pay off the remaining mortgage? (Historian and author Stephanie Coontz notes in her essay "A Nation of Welfare Families" that this was the standard home purchasing protocol prior to the creation of the Federal Housing Authority, Fannie Mae, and Ginnie Mae when the federal government went into the business of insuring and backing housing loans.) What if you had to pay for tuition to send your child to a private K-12 school because public schools could no longer accommodate all school-age children due to reduced tax revenues?
Taxes might make us wince when we see the net results of our take-home earnings, but taxes also insure that we can expect certain public services that we wouldn't want to be denied. More importantly, those who make millions each year should pay a minimum amount of taxes every year despite all of the loopholes they currently utilize: Who would feel sorry for someone who makes millions of dollars a year--or even one million dollars a year--and would have to pay at least half of his or her earnings in taxes? I wouldn't feel sorry for someone who would have to live on $500,000 a year--who would? If I were in a position to make millions each year, I wouldn't feel somehow less of a human being if half of my income went to help the general populace; if anything, I would feel good that I'm helping to reduce the taxes of those whose incomes are far less than mine (remember "Ask not what your country can do for you..."?) while improving and sustaining the country's infrastructure.
Keats was right: The world is a "vale of soul making." Instead of scapegoating the poor, the undocumented, and the unionized workers in this country (unions came about largely because of greedy business owners who didn't care about the working conditions, health, and welfare of their poorly paid employees), we need to realize that our country's soul depends upon our collective ability to integrate our spiritual awareness into our public policy awareness. If we're truly committed to "acknowledge Him in all thy ways" (and I'm fairly sure all means all), we must incorporate altruism in every aspect of our lives, including our political lives and our public policies.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Notes on Writers and the Teaching of Writing, I.
I.
Those of us who've been formally trained as writers, who've been the beneficiaries of writing workshops taught by respected practitioners who discuss issues of craft line by line, syllable by syllable, often have to witness or tolerate naive notions about writing and the teaching of writing; such naivete is a constant emanation from colleagues in the teaching ranks or from administrators or even from students who "profess" to know what works best to help students become better writers.
But that last word, writers, is a major irritation because of its broad umbrella, for those of us who've spent a large part of our student and adult years actually working at becoming writers--to the point of publishing, winning awards, and/or accepting visiting or tenured positions as writers in academe--are quite different than the majority of students and composition instructors whose formal coursework didn't help them become writers who publish or win acclaim as poets, fiction writers, or non-fiction writers.
The vast majority of composition instructors aren't trained as writers per se; rather, they are trained either as literary theorists/historians/critics or as teachers of composition (they take courses mainly in composition pedagogy and theory: they learn certain protocols or methods to utilize in a classroom, such as peer-editing, holistic grading, computer-assisted instruction, journal writing or "free" writing exercises, and other non-craft-oriented teaching methods and theories). True, they do write papers, but so do students in sociology, history, and math classes. To use an analogy, music appreciation or art history instructors are trained in specific histories or theories that correspond to various musical pieces or artworks or composers/artists, but they aren't trained to become creators of music or art. But when educational institutions look for faculty to teach piano or 2-D/3-D art classes, they don't look for music appreciation or art history degree holders; rather, they look for well-educated practitioners who've dedicated years to learning their respective crafts. In short, they look for people who can do and teach.
In fact, English departments rarely require composition applicants to even demonstrate their writing skills, let alone require in-depth training as writers. For most faculty members on hiring committees, the only document they look at to determine if one has some facility with written discourse is the dreaded letter of application--not the best piece of evidence when one considers how such letters must address various job announcement criteria, and I wouldn't be surprised if some composition applicants seek out the help of professional resume writers and services to help them fine tune such documents.
As a result, teachers of composition often aren't publishing, award-winning practitioners in any genre, yet they supposedly can teach writing despite their relative lack of training as craftspeople. No wonder some institutions rely on group portfolio programs, holistic grading, and "norming" sessions for their composition faculty--which is quite unheard of among those who teach creative writing workshops: I've yet to come across a well-trained, publishing poet or fiction writer who says he or she needs norming because he or she has doubts about "standards" or "learning outcomes" or "craft concerns." How absurd! I can't imagine Phil Levine or Pete Everwine or Mike Ryan or Terry Hummer or Jim McMichael or Ken Fields or Cynthia Huntington or Simone DiPiero or the late Denise Levertov saying to themselves, "Gee, I don't know what to say about this piece of writing--I should ask my colleagues for help!" Of course,
I wouldn't expect them to hold the same opinions about different pieces of literature, for art by necessity constantly evolves; to paraphrase Terry Hummer, purity in art simply doesn't exist: all art is impure. Writing, like painting and music, is not a hard science, yet the communal need for "norming" sessions among some composition teachers illustrates a definite communal lack of expertise. And that lack does not bode well for composition students.
When we use the term writer, we should delineate between academic, non-publishing, temporary "writers" found in most classrooms (most students and, sadly, many teachers fall into this group) as opposed to writers like William Carlos Williams or Octavio Paz or Cynthia Ozick; the former as a group generally writes for a grade or a position and often does so in a rather hurried, mechanical manner, whereas the latter and their peers, past and present, write for eternity--and eternity is the harshest of critics and isn't pressed for time.
Those of us who've been formally trained as writers, who've been the beneficiaries of writing workshops taught by respected practitioners who discuss issues of craft line by line, syllable by syllable, often have to witness or tolerate naive notions about writing and the teaching of writing; such naivete is a constant emanation from colleagues in the teaching ranks or from administrators or even from students who "profess" to know what works best to help students become better writers.
But that last word, writers, is a major irritation because of its broad umbrella, for those of us who've spent a large part of our student and adult years actually working at becoming writers--to the point of publishing, winning awards, and/or accepting visiting or tenured positions as writers in academe--are quite different than the majority of students and composition instructors whose formal coursework didn't help them become writers who publish or win acclaim as poets, fiction writers, or non-fiction writers.
The vast majority of composition instructors aren't trained as writers per se; rather, they are trained either as literary theorists/historians/critics or as teachers of composition (they take courses mainly in composition pedagogy and theory: they learn certain protocols or methods to utilize in a classroom, such as peer-editing, holistic grading, computer-assisted instruction, journal writing or "free" writing exercises, and other non-craft-oriented teaching methods and theories). True, they do write papers, but so do students in sociology, history, and math classes. To use an analogy, music appreciation or art history instructors are trained in specific histories or theories that correspond to various musical pieces or artworks or composers/artists, but they aren't trained to become creators of music or art. But when educational institutions look for faculty to teach piano or 2-D/3-D art classes, they don't look for music appreciation or art history degree holders; rather, they look for well-educated practitioners who've dedicated years to learning their respective crafts. In short, they look for people who can do and teach.
In fact, English departments rarely require composition applicants to even demonstrate their writing skills, let alone require in-depth training as writers. For most faculty members on hiring committees, the only document they look at to determine if one has some facility with written discourse is the dreaded letter of application--not the best piece of evidence when one considers how such letters must address various job announcement criteria, and I wouldn't be surprised if some composition applicants seek out the help of professional resume writers and services to help them fine tune such documents.
As a result, teachers of composition often aren't publishing, award-winning practitioners in any genre, yet they supposedly can teach writing despite their relative lack of training as craftspeople. No wonder some institutions rely on group portfolio programs, holistic grading, and "norming" sessions for their composition faculty--which is quite unheard of among those who teach creative writing workshops: I've yet to come across a well-trained, publishing poet or fiction writer who says he or she needs norming because he or she has doubts about "standards" or "learning outcomes" or "craft concerns." How absurd! I can't imagine Phil Levine or Pete Everwine or Mike Ryan or Terry Hummer or Jim McMichael or Ken Fields or Cynthia Huntington or Simone DiPiero or the late Denise Levertov saying to themselves, "Gee, I don't know what to say about this piece of writing--I should ask my colleagues for help!" Of course,
I wouldn't expect them to hold the same opinions about different pieces of literature, for art by necessity constantly evolves; to paraphrase Terry Hummer, purity in art simply doesn't exist: all art is impure. Writing, like painting and music, is not a hard science, yet the communal need for "norming" sessions among some composition teachers illustrates a definite communal lack of expertise. And that lack does not bode well for composition students.
When we use the term writer, we should delineate between academic, non-publishing, temporary "writers" found in most classrooms (most students and, sadly, many teachers fall into this group) as opposed to writers like William Carlos Williams or Octavio Paz or Cynthia Ozick; the former as a group generally writes for a grade or a position and often does so in a rather hurried, mechanical manner, whereas the latter and their peers, past and present, write for eternity--and eternity is the harshest of critics and isn't pressed for time.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Elizabeth Bishop's "Filling Station": Word Choices, Sounds, and Silences
Filling Station
Oh, but it is dirty!
--this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!
Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it's a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.
Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.
Some comic books provide
the only note of color--
of certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.
Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)
Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO--SO--SO--SO
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.
--Elizabeth Bishop, The Complete Poems: 1927-1979
I've always been struck by Bishop's craft expertise in her work, and "Filling Station" typifies her attention to not only what a poem means but how a poem means something.
For instance, most of us would probably not begin a poem with the exclamation "Oh": Bad poems often start with such ohs that signal to the reader the speaker's emotional and possibly spiritual state: "I'm in a state of rare sensitivity; I've reached the sublime and I want you to be ready for my oracular exhortations." But Bishop's use of "Oh" is quite the contrary: the speaker is a snob whose initial reaction to the scene at hand is one of disgust. Consequently, Bishop's word choice from the very first phoneme is an apt one. And, luckily for the poem and for us, the term "filling station" was a commonplace during Bishop's and even during my childhood; "gas station" wouldn't have the same effect that "filling station" can and will have in the poem. (And I'm old enough to remember that Exxon was once Esso: the penultimate trope in the last stanza wouldn't have the same soothing effect with the term Exxon.)
And I love how Bishop repeats various sounds for evocative reinforcement of the speaker's experience: Oh, oil-soaked, oil-permeated, and over-all echo the first utterance so that when a reader actually reads aloud the poem, the vowels harp upon each other just as popular songs dig into a listener's cognitive awareness that can't literally be defined but can be mouthed over and over. Music has that effect: certain vibrations in the air hit the eardrums and work their magic. (Was it William Carlos Williams who said that prose is written to be read whereas poetry is written to be heard?)
Such repetitions of words and sounds seamlessly work throughout the poem, and Bishop also utilizes modifiers in a masterly manner. For example, in addition to the hyphenated adjectives, she expertly inserts adjectives that some MFA graduates would never do (a certain "school" in the Midwest comes to my mind): the sons are "quick," "saucy," and "greasy"; the station is "quite thoroughly" dirty; the wickerwork is "crushed" and "grease-impregnated"; the doily is "big" and "dim"; the begonia (one of my favorite plant names) is "big" and "hirsute"; the automobiles are "high-strung." One might associate such adjective usage with Southern poets like Robert Penn Warren and James Dickey, but, in fact, Bishop's contemporaries were not shy of modifiers: Robert Lowell's For the Union Dead and John Berryman's Dream Songs have a multitude of modifiers that, if deleted, would be similar to taking out certain notes in Muddy Waters' music or limiting Georgia O'Keefe's palette to just blues and greens. Does this mean one should go adjective and adverb crazy? Of course not, but Bishop's craft awareness illustrates what's possible when one uses great care when writing and revising one's work.
And another craft element that's noticeable in Bishop's poetry is her awareness of the length of her utterances and where the pauses, the silences, occur. Look at the third stanza: She starts with a heavily end-stopped line; the second line has a natural caesura at the end; the third line has a medial caesura but ends with a run-on which lends a greater emphasis to the beginning of the fourth line; within the fourth line, a ever so soft caesura occurs after "crushed" and then the line utilizes enjambment like the previous one; the fifth line is heavily end-stopped; the sixth line is enjambed; the seventh line, like the third line, has a medial caesura. Bishop's utterances combine repetition and variation, the corrective push and pull of well-crafted lines; as Donald Hall notes, such tension is similar to what corrects one's teeth: "Damn braces."
Craft in the hands of someone like Bishop can make us all the more appreciative of what's possible when one hammers away until the result shimmers and eternally breathes.
Oh, but it is dirty!
--this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!
Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it's a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.
Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.
Some comic books provide
the only note of color--
of certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.
Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)
Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO--SO--SO--SO
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.
--Elizabeth Bishop, The Complete Poems: 1927-1979
I've always been struck by Bishop's craft expertise in her work, and "Filling Station" typifies her attention to not only what a poem means but how a poem means something.
For instance, most of us would probably not begin a poem with the exclamation "Oh": Bad poems often start with such ohs that signal to the reader the speaker's emotional and possibly spiritual state: "I'm in a state of rare sensitivity; I've reached the sublime and I want you to be ready for my oracular exhortations." But Bishop's use of "Oh" is quite the contrary: the speaker is a snob whose initial reaction to the scene at hand is one of disgust. Consequently, Bishop's word choice from the very first phoneme is an apt one. And, luckily for the poem and for us, the term "filling station" was a commonplace during Bishop's and even during my childhood; "gas station" wouldn't have the same effect that "filling station" can and will have in the poem. (And I'm old enough to remember that Exxon was once Esso: the penultimate trope in the last stanza wouldn't have the same soothing effect with the term Exxon.)
And I love how Bishop repeats various sounds for evocative reinforcement of the speaker's experience: Oh, oil-soaked, oil-permeated, and over-all echo the first utterance so that when a reader actually reads aloud the poem, the vowels harp upon each other just as popular songs dig into a listener's cognitive awareness that can't literally be defined but can be mouthed over and over. Music has that effect: certain vibrations in the air hit the eardrums and work their magic. (Was it William Carlos Williams who said that prose is written to be read whereas poetry is written to be heard?)
Such repetitions of words and sounds seamlessly work throughout the poem, and Bishop also utilizes modifiers in a masterly manner. For example, in addition to the hyphenated adjectives, she expertly inserts adjectives that some MFA graduates would never do (a certain "school" in the Midwest comes to my mind): the sons are "quick," "saucy," and "greasy"; the station is "quite thoroughly" dirty; the wickerwork is "crushed" and "grease-impregnated"; the doily is "big" and "dim"; the begonia (one of my favorite plant names) is "big" and "hirsute"; the automobiles are "high-strung." One might associate such adjective usage with Southern poets like Robert Penn Warren and James Dickey, but, in fact, Bishop's contemporaries were not shy of modifiers: Robert Lowell's For the Union Dead and John Berryman's Dream Songs have a multitude of modifiers that, if deleted, would be similar to taking out certain notes in Muddy Waters' music or limiting Georgia O'Keefe's palette to just blues and greens. Does this mean one should go adjective and adverb crazy? Of course not, but Bishop's craft awareness illustrates what's possible when one uses great care when writing and revising one's work.
And another craft element that's noticeable in Bishop's poetry is her awareness of the length of her utterances and where the pauses, the silences, occur. Look at the third stanza: She starts with a heavily end-stopped line; the second line has a natural caesura at the end; the third line has a medial caesura but ends with a run-on which lends a greater emphasis to the beginning of the fourth line; within the fourth line, a ever so soft caesura occurs after "crushed" and then the line utilizes enjambment like the previous one; the fifth line is heavily end-stopped; the sixth line is enjambed; the seventh line, like the third line, has a medial caesura. Bishop's utterances combine repetition and variation, the corrective push and pull of well-crafted lines; as Donald Hall notes, such tension is similar to what corrects one's teeth: "Damn braces."
Craft in the hands of someone like Bishop can make us all the more appreciative of what's possible when one hammers away until the result shimmers and eternally breathes.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Proposition 8 and Constitutional and Historical Awareness
Months of the year have unique historical or emotional associations for some of us. For example, ever since I was an elementary school student, August is the month that forever mushrooms over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As a young boy in Fresno, I would connect such incredible, world-ending heat to the wilting August temperatures outside our swamp-cooled house on Poppy Street. Of course, no amount of my imaginative powers could ever come close to the reality that hundreds of thousands of Japanese experienced on and--for those who survived the blasts--after those two infamous days in August 1945. History often has that effect: Our human brains strive to make connections to what can seem almost as abstract and as memorable as a Pablo Picasso painting.
Today is one of those days in history that will be added to my August consciousness: A federal court judge struck down California's Proposition 8 as unconstitutional.
Some might ask, "Why is this ruling so important to you, especially if you're not gay?"
I'm a believer in the Constitution of the United States and in The Bill of Rights, and I've always considered the Fourteenth Amendment and its "Equal Protection Clause" as crucial for people who are not members of "the majority." We have a history of the majority wanting to place restrictions on various minority groups; for instance, at one time we permitted slavery and we denied women the right to vote. And just because we have a U.S. Supreme Court doesn't mean inequalities can be quickly ended; past Supreme Court decisions led to various "Jim Crow" laws that manifested the so-called "separate but equal" mentality that I'm certain some people still crave (the Tea Party's mantra, "Give us back our country," strikes me as dangerously nostalgic for what were ugly times for people not in the majority). The 1954 Brown v. The Board of Education Supreme Court ruling still bothers some who don't want their children to attend integrated schools, and the 1967 Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court ruling, which put an end to anti-miscegenation laws, must still bother those who think that whites should not marry blacks for whatever sad, ill-conceived reasons.
And such people who don't like interracial marriages, integrated schools, or homosexual marriages have every right to hold such views, but today's ruling reinforces what we all must remember: Constitutional rights can never to be denied simply because a majority of voters deem them as deniable.
The United States of America was and still is an ideal on paper that with the passage of time struggles to become a reality, and today's decision is just one more step toward that reality.
Today is one of those days in history that will be added to my August consciousness: A federal court judge struck down California's Proposition 8 as unconstitutional.
Some might ask, "Why is this ruling so important to you, especially if you're not gay?"
I'm a believer in the Constitution of the United States and in The Bill of Rights, and I've always considered the Fourteenth Amendment and its "Equal Protection Clause" as crucial for people who are not members of "the majority." We have a history of the majority wanting to place restrictions on various minority groups; for instance, at one time we permitted slavery and we denied women the right to vote. And just because we have a U.S. Supreme Court doesn't mean inequalities can be quickly ended; past Supreme Court decisions led to various "Jim Crow" laws that manifested the so-called "separate but equal" mentality that I'm certain some people still crave (the Tea Party's mantra, "Give us back our country," strikes me as dangerously nostalgic for what were ugly times for people not in the majority). The 1954 Brown v. The Board of Education Supreme Court ruling still bothers some who don't want their children to attend integrated schools, and the 1967 Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court ruling, which put an end to anti-miscegenation laws, must still bother those who think that whites should not marry blacks for whatever sad, ill-conceived reasons.
And such people who don't like interracial marriages, integrated schools, or homosexual marriages have every right to hold such views, but today's ruling reinforces what we all must remember: Constitutional rights can never to be denied simply because a majority of voters deem them as deniable.
The United States of America was and still is an ideal on paper that with the passage of time struggles to become a reality, and today's decision is just one more step toward that reality.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Illness and Love
I've been ill lately; my body at times seems to belong to someone much older (at least in my head I'm still an awkward teen who longs for love but will settle for groping in a darkened theater--the prose of B movies swirling about private parts slightly tinged with the odor of moldy linen).
And, becalmed even at this hour of the morning as my dog sleeps on without me, I somehow know my health will come back, like the old French cinema classic where the boy approaches the sea, looks out, and turns back toward land, toward the humans despite the additional blows that await him.
I am in love, actually; no, not with another human, though she is nearing me just as deliberately as I swerve her way, but with this hour when the blood can't seem to fall asleep but nudges me: "Go ahead, it won't hurt, really."
Clearly, I'm strung out just as the heavens do their sleepwalk over my small rooftop; the hunter Orion has no choice but to clarify this dark patch of sky, for we all hunt for what we need, cleansed by God knows what, spurred by ill health and the promise of jam and cookies and a cool hand on our foreheads.
If I say, "This might be poetry," I would not win my case in court; if I say, "This is love," I would not win your heart. But why say anything at all if meaning is just subjective spark plugs firing in our brains; why say "I'm in love" if it matters, at best, only to me?
My doctor wants me to take tests that require induced sleep, a temporary "death," so to speak; a machine would breathe for me, but would a machine also dream for me? And in the tunnel that would surely guide me back, would I linger if only to scrawl on the walls just how much I love what can't be seen?
And, becalmed even at this hour of the morning as my dog sleeps on without me, I somehow know my health will come back, like the old French cinema classic where the boy approaches the sea, looks out, and turns back toward land, toward the humans despite the additional blows that await him.
I am in love, actually; no, not with another human, though she is nearing me just as deliberately as I swerve her way, but with this hour when the blood can't seem to fall asleep but nudges me: "Go ahead, it won't hurt, really."
Clearly, I'm strung out just as the heavens do their sleepwalk over my small rooftop; the hunter Orion has no choice but to clarify this dark patch of sky, for we all hunt for what we need, cleansed by God knows what, spurred by ill health and the promise of jam and cookies and a cool hand on our foreheads.
If I say, "This might be poetry," I would not win my case in court; if I say, "This is love," I would not win your heart. But why say anything at all if meaning is just subjective spark plugs firing in our brains; why say "I'm in love" if it matters, at best, only to me?
My doctor wants me to take tests that require induced sleep, a temporary "death," so to speak; a machine would breathe for me, but would a machine also dream for me? And in the tunnel that would surely guide me back, would I linger if only to scrawl on the walls just how much I love what can't be seen?
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